In my experience, the best readily available broad overview of early aviation is Richard Hallion’s Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age, from Antiquity through the First World War.  It does an excellent job of bringing together lots of information for many different sources.  The bibliography is also huge, so if something in the text sparks your interest, it can point you in the direction of more readings along those lines.

A book more directly related to WW1 aviation, is The First Air War by Lee Kennett.  While it is rather dry, it does a fantastic job of tracing the evolving role of the aeroplane throughout the first World War.

Contact! The Story of the Early Birds by Henry Serrano Villard does a wonderful job of following the pioneers.  He lived through this era, and in addition to explaining the airplanes, he does a great job following the early air races, which inspired the movie Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.  The cheapest way to buy it is probably on eBay.

A book which fits nicely between Contact! and Taking Flight is Arch Whitehouse’s Early Birds: The Wonders and Heroics of the First Decades of Flight. I found my copy at a used book store, though I have seen some floating around on the internet (eBay and Amazon) as well.

Another fantastic resource (although it is not a book) is www.theaerodrome.com.  It is home to a huge community of folks who really know what they are talking about when it comes to WW1 and prior.  Some of them are replica builders (i.e. full sized), some of them are model builders, and some of them just enjoy the history.  It culminates in a community that can pretty much answer any question.

And if you ever want to talk early airplanes, feel free to shoot me an email at etotheix (AT) gmail (DOT) com.

Warren Buffet likes to talk about how winning the genetic lottery was instrumental to him becoming so rich.  I must admit, I feel the same way.  My Dad was really into lots of different things when I was growing up, and I’m blessed to have access to his shop, which includes a stand-alone mill, 12″ swing lathe, and a CNC router he scratch built.  Earlier in life, I wasn’t much interested in his stuff, but now that I am I get to have wayyy too much fun.

CNC Router!

I have cut some simple things on the CNC router, but recently I’ve tried to move to more completed objects.  I’m fascinated with early engines, airplanes, and automobiles, so I have done some searching to try and find some interesting logos to CNC.  However, high quality scans/images seem to be quite rare.  That said, I was really into LOST, and the Dharma logo has a very interesting shape, and there are lots of high quality pictures online to use to generate the toolpath.

The software that generates the toolpath (V Carve Pro) has a tool that can outline an image that you import.  Since the Dharma logo is black and white, it does a pretty darn good job.  I didn’t need to go in and change anything.

Since I’m still learning, I’m using scrap pieces of wood lying around in the barn.  The logo is cut with a V-carve (so it looks like it was chiseled) which means the surface has to be flat, because if it is not the depth of the V changes, which makes it look pretty odd.  Since old boards are not flat, I started by surfacing the cutting area down 1/8″ to ensure it was flat.This picture is actually once I began cutting the V, because I forgot take one before.  That said, you can clearly see the flat spot.

This picture is actually once I began cutting the V, because I forgot take one before. That said, you can clearly see the flat spot.

This is Mach3Mill, which runs the machine. It looks a little like a Dharma program, doesn't it?

A picture taken as the carving happened!

Once the carving was fully engraved with the 1/2 router bit, I switched it out for a 1/4′ cutting bit, and cut the sign out of the rest of the material.  It was supposed to have tabs to hold it in place, but I made them too thin, so they broke before the cutting was completely finished.  Luckily they broke at the very end, so not noticeable damage was done.  It still needs to be cleaned up, but the pine is pretty flaky, and this was a pretty shallow cut.  As such, there is quite a bit of chipping.  A quick going over the sand paper did wonders, but there is a lot that stands to be improved.  I think I’ll try again sometime later in the week, using a larger piece of wood to make the cuts more pronounced and with a slightly faster cutting speed.

I also had the chance to shellac it, which seals it to a certain extent, and hides some of the cracks in the pine.  An example of the difference the shellac makes can be found in the picture below.

The final logo, as seen in the image above looks like:

Namaste!

Snazzy!

We actually had to cut the logo twice because the first one cracked off a bit of the wood in between carves. Here is a picture of the sign being cut with the CNC machine. Ian should feel free to chime in with the software the machine runs or how his dad built the machine.

It took only a couple minutes to cut

Well, after we’d made the sign I was trying to think of something to do with it. First on the agenda will be a nice coat of paint, but I’d like to put it one something. A friend recently gave me an original VW radio from either a Bug or a Rabbt, so I think I may try to build a box that contains the radio and a couple of speakers. Then I’ll mount the VW logo front and center. Here’s a picture of the VW radio, still trying to figure out what year it is from.

Note 5 buttons

It has 5 really awesome mechanical buttons that will switch channels that seem to be preset to your selected station. Unlike today’s radio it uses all kinds of levers and springs to throw the radio tuner back to the preset station. Still need to put 12 volts on it to see if everything is functional but it looks to be in pretty good shape.

After a painful wait, my materials finally arrived!  Today package #1 of 2 from onlinemetals.com arrived.  I guess earlier I didn’t realize how small these models really are.  Below is a picture of some of the stock with a quarter for comparison.  It really is small!

This stock is awful small...

Once the shock of the size wore off, I got down to work.  The engine consists of 4 major parts: the piston/connecting rod, cylinder, port face/mount, and crankshaft/flywheel.  A quick explanation of each is as follows:

Piston/Connecting Rod: The steam pushes against the piston, and the connecting rod takes it to the crankshaft, where it is turned from a linear motion to a rotary one.
Cylinder: The piston rides inside the cylinder
Port Face/Mount: In an oscillating steam engine, the piston actually swings back and forth on the port face.  Holes in the port face act as valves, which allow the steam to enter and exit the cylinder.
Flywheel/Crankshaft: The crankshaft and flywheel convert the linear motion of the piston into a rotary motion.  Since this is a single acting oscillating engine, the energy from the flywheel also helps keep the engine turning, as the steam is not always pressing on the piston.

I began by making the Port Face.  I rough cut a piece of the 3/16″x1/2″ stock to approximate and then milled it down to the precise length.  Then I drilled the “bearing” for the crankshaft.  This is actually just an 1/8″ hole in the Port Face.  There is also a small piece that the Port Face is soldered to so that the engine can be easily mounted.

Milling the Port Face

Then I turned the cylinder, which was pretty straight forward.  I messed around for a while trying to decide how to best turn the piston, when I stumbled on some 3/8″ brass in my Dad’s stock.  I was beginning to set this up, when I slipped and cut my finger.  Not a bad cut, but since it was 10 o’clock I decided to call it a night.  The adventure continues tomorrow!  Below is a picture of what I accomplished, with a quarter for scale.

From left to right, Port Face mount, Port Face, Cylinder, Piston Attempt. Quarter is for scale.

See Article #2.

This is article #2 in Steam Power!, Ian’s build log of making simple steam engines.

For those of you following along at home, the above is a video of Engine #5 (Slim Sam) that someone else has built.  My first project (Simple Sam) is similar, so it gives you a basic idea of what the engine will look like.

I finally placed the order for my stock to begin building steam engines.  I was about to order it a few days ago, but I wanted to double, triple, extra check the list because the $25 shipping cost is killer.  I only ordered about $50 in stock…

That said, brass and copper are now on the way.  There is already plenty of stainless steel & mild steel laying about in my Dad’s shop.  By my calculations, I bought enough stuff to build the first three engines and mess every part up about three times.  I hope I overestimated my ability to goof…

The reason for the delay is finding copper to make the boiler.  Onlinemetals.com sells the appropriately sized copper pipe (2″ diameter), but at a rather costly $25/foot.  I’d like to avoid paying that much, and so had my dad shop around locally while I was at work.  He forgot for a few days, but when he finally went to the local plumbing suppliers, they went nuts looking for the stuff.  They also sell 2″ pipe at a lower price ($10/foot), but I would need to buy a 10 foot length (for $100).  However, they had a 3′ length of 1.5″ pipe, so I will likely use that to build the first boiler, and see where we go from there.  As of right now, it looks like the boiler may be the last thing I work on however.

Even though the stock isn’t here yet, I’ve been busy.  Included below is the parts list for Stan Bray’s Engine #3 (Simple Sam) from Making Simple Model Steam Engines, as far as I can tell.  It’s kind of annoying a part’s list isn’t included in the book, but I’m reasonably sure this is accurate.

Parts List for Stan Bray’s Simple Sam (Engine #3) from Making Simple Model Steam Engines

• 1/2″x3/16″ Brass, 5″ long
• 1/2″ diameter Brass rod, 2.5″ long*
• 3/32″ diameter Mild Steel rod, 2″ long
• 1/8″ diameter Mild Steel rod, 1″ long
• 1″ (or 3/4″) diameter Mild Steel rod, 1/2″ long
• Stainless Steel or Bronze wire to wind a spring (he doesn’t specify, I will be trying 26 AWG)

*This is enough to make both the piston and cylinder out of Brass.  This is technically wrong, as two metals rubbing tend to gall and wear faster than two different metals, i.e. brass on brass will wear much faster than stainless steel on brass.  However, the author says it won’t be noticeable in the lifetime of these toy engines, so I am trusting him.  If it turns out to be an issue, I can always make another!

Additionally, I am lucky enough to have access to a mostly equipped shop with a mill and a lathe.  As such, some of the funkier pieces, I am making from larger stock.  The 1/2″x5/32″ Brass bar stock is milled to a couple different thicknesses to make different parts.  I am also turning most of the mild steel pins and shafts from slightly thicker stock, as it happens to be lying on the stock rack and I won’t want to spend money on it.

Read the next installment, Construction Begins!

At first I stumbled on Jerry Howell’s plans, which are for Atmospheric, Stirling, and Gas engines.  While relatively inexpensive, I wasn’t sure I could work from just the plans at this stage.  After some searching on Amazon, I found several books on steam engines that got great reviews.  I purchased two of them, Building Simple Model Steam Engines, and Making Simple Model Steam Engines.  Both of them rely mostly on an oscillating engine, the simplest type of steam engine.  Making Simple Model Steam Engines is recently published, and full of pictures, detailed drawings, and descriptions.  I plan on starting from this book, and working through at least the first couple of engines.  As I progress, I plan to post status updates.  I will also want to post a completed page for each engine.

It is worth noting that Building Simple Model Steam Engines is also well done and uses different (albeit more complicated) construction techniques.  I hope to work through those once I have finished a few from Making Simple Model Steam Engines.

I am ordering stock from onlinemetals.com, and am hoping to pick up the boiler material (2″ copper tubing) from a local place for cheaper than the $25 per foot it costs online.  Hopefully construction will begin early next week.

See Article #2.

Headset number two went much smoother and worked on the first try. Then the connection broke on the mic….. and I overheated the microphone again with my iron apparently because after I reconnected it…. it doesn’t work. Bothered and bewildered I put the Iron Phone on hold for finals.

Now apparently, I ordered another headset at one point or another that got shipped home (how and when… I’m not entirely certain). Much to my surprise I have yet another headset to try.

We meet twice a week during the fall semester, and twice a week for the first quarter of the spring semester.  Then we move to the build lab, where we meet everyday.  Of course, you aren’t obligated to come daily, just as much as you’re free/want to.  For some reason, people stop coming when we start building, and building is far more exciting than designing.

Anyways, this years plane is known as Arthur Baskins.  He has a moustache and a monocle.  You can watch his test flight below.  There is lots of laughing, because we expected a 40′ takeoff roll and because of the headwind it was more like 2′.

All the cosmetic work was done after the final test flight, which explains why it looks a little different.

Link if the Embedded Video doesn’t work.

Absolute bare bones of the DVD/VCR player after being picked clean of anything awesome

Also, over spring break Ian and I had the pleasure/displeasure of driving a PT Cruiser from Maine to Washington D.C. A trip of epic proportions indeed! We had many laughs along the way and attempted (relatively successfully) to take pictures of every wind turbine along the way. Although the highlight of the trip was the guided Segway Tour, a little on the expensive side but definitely worth the money. The attraction was the Segway more than anything for me but I guess the tour was cool too. After being stared at by pedestrians, laughed at and even clapped for while we rode through D.C. looking like the most obnoxious tourists you could possibly hope to see…. we had to kick it up a notch. As we rolled up the National mall nearing the capital building I saw this. I had to get my picture taken with it.

"Ian! Ian! Take a picture!!!"

Needless to say, I think everyone else on the tour was a little embarrassed by our excitement to see a wind turbine on the mall.

On our way to D.C. we made a stop in Boston for the night to visit with friends. We tried to go to MIT’s new Media Lab, unfortunately we got there a bit late and couldn’t get in. In disappointment we stared through the window and to my surprise Ian spotted (quite astutely) the airfoil used in the Gossamer Condor (Ian please correct me if I am wrong) hanging from the ceiling near the entrance to the building. We could see all kinds of neat stuff hanging around in there, it’s too bad they were closed.

Excited Ian

More recently, over Easter weekend I spent some time underneath my VW Bug adding iron to my diet (eating rust). I put in a new starter motor as the old one was being unreliable and causing me to park on hills wherever I went in case I needed a jump start (Little Miss Sunshine Style). More work is underway for the Bug, next up is probably a new muffler as the old one has finally rusted through. If I had infinite money/time I would love to upgrade the fuel injection system to the MegaSquirt fuel injection system (phallic name, I know). The system is pretty neat though, it is quite universal and all open source, you can even build the board and solder yourself if you like. I would love to have a computer onboard the bug that would allow me to tune the system and maybe switch from economy to performance mode with the click of a button. An EEE pc would fit nicely in the glovebox….. Of course if I had infinite money, I would consider turning the thing into an electric dragster. Recently I’ve been reading about White Zombie, a home built high performance electric car that smokes Tesla Roadsters at the drag strip. Yikes!

1975 VW Bug

During a late night of studying in Barrows Hall, an upperclassman yelled from across the room to a person standing by the printer “Hey, what’s the weather like?” By this time it was dark outside and being Electrical Engineering upperclassmen… they probably hadn’t been outside in quite some time. They were met with the response “I dunno, but the printer says it’s 52 and cloudy”. At the time it didn’t strike me as odd, after a minute though it occurred to me what had just been said and I had to see it for myself.

Printer in Windows Lab of Barrows Hall

The Black Bear Robotics club helped in putting on the 2nd annual (I think) Maine VEX championship. We had around 20 teams including last years world champions, Green Egg Robotics. Overall the event was pretty classy with appearences from Governor Baldacci and President Kennedy (of Umaine that is).

Maine VEX championship in DPC 100

In my ECE 177 class our teacher, always has an item of the day that he shows us in the middle of class. It’s a nice way to break up the class and being an avid puzzle collector he usually has some neat stuff. The other day he brought in a chunk of Aerogel, which has the lowest density of any porous solid. I’ve always wanted to hold a chunk of it but it was usually in a locked glass cabinet whenever I saw it. You’re really not supposed to hold it for too long, apparently the stuff absorbs moisture and if you get too much water in it… it stops being so cool…. or something. Either way, I couldn’t resist and I snapped this picture mid-class. It’s got a cool texture a lot like really strong jello.

Aerogel was the cool object of the day in ECE177

Found in the parking lot of the AEWC was this classy piece of Maine auto detailing. Probably a more appropriate picture for the There I Fixed It Blog.

Nice pai.... tape job?